


don't wanna be lonely (just wanna be yours)

by typervoxilations



Series: Divine Benediction [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Body Horror, Fairy Tale Elements, Graphic Description, Horror, Horror Elements, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Old Gods, what happens when you ask what if mechs but flesh, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:34:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25066978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typervoxilations/pseuds/typervoxilations
Summary: “You won’t belong to him anymore. But you might not belong anywhere at all. The gods are fickle, but they won’t accept a defiled sacrifice. Would you be willing to risk it?”
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Divine Benediction [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815463
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	don't wanna be lonely (just wanna be yours)

**Author's Note:**

> birthday present for my lovely moonbeam, who is also the creator of this lovely universe <3  
> title from [bts - save me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZjt_sA2eso)

Whispering and wails of agony rattle in the back of Lys’ mind, incoherent but desperate, an ever present cacophony of a million voices and then some. He is used to this, he loses himself to it often. The sacrifices of Icarus plague him relentlessly, louder still the more Icarus changes him. They are especially noisy tonight.

Something has caught their attention.

 _It hurts_ , one of the voices hisses at him, but he knows this. He’s forgotten what it’s like to not _hurt_ all over, what it’s like for the pain to not be a part of his very existence. The skin that has not been replaced with hundreds of ever blinking eyes of various sizes is blackened, peeling and split open and always forever _burning_ , dripping molten gold that hisses and evaporates the second it touches the dirt. He can see so much. He can see everything, from everywhere instead of where they’re supposed to be. His head hangs low, too heavy to be held upright all the time. The weight of the curved, thick antlers crawling from his eye sockets tips him forward, counterbalance to the sharp skeletal wing structure lined down his bare spine, charred black and crusted over with mud and blood from where they trail through the ground of his prison. 

_The sun_ , another groans, and if it still possessed fingers it would reach towards the small slit perched in the wall, too high to reach. To call it a window would be generous, and it is not even daytime - the pale light illuminating the scant few inches in front of the hole making the dust motes glow but barely penetrating the dark was from the moon and the stars and Lys doesn’t remember anymore what either look like. The burning heat of his damaged skin wars with the shuddering chill seeping from the marrow of his bones and he trembles. 

_Stop this_ , a third weeps. They want it to end. So does he.

 _Look_ , the fourth finally sighs.

The door to the prison flings open with a bang and guards drag someone in between them. He’s twisting and squirming, pleading with them, but they simply open the cage door next to Lys’ and throw him in. He lands awkwardly with a cry, crumpling immediately to the dirty floor and the door clangs shut.

A sob echos from the curled up form.

He doesn’t seem to realize that he’s not alone. 

Lys holds as still as he can. 

The sobbing doesn’t stop and, he realizes with a put upon sigh, it isn’t likely to stop for some time if he was brought down here kicking and screaming. 

His sigh draws the boy’s attention though - he jerks, his crying cutting off abruptly into hiccups. “H-hello? Is someone else th-there?” Lys doesn’t answer, eyes blinking slowly, unsynchronized, as the boy uncurls from his fetal position and gets to his hands and knees. He watches the boy push himself to unsteady feet, squinting in the dark, trying to make out his shape. “Hello?” He tries again.

Lys wonders if he should respond.

Does he even remember how to speak? 

His throat is parched, his lips cracked, and the words he attempts to speak first tumble from his mouth as embers and ash that glow in the dark, drawing the boy’s attention finally, though how he missed the red-and-gold glow that shines from between his split skin, Lys isn’t sure. He sees the boy struggling to make sense of the dark shape he’s attempting to trace out, moving close to the bars that separate their cells.

He knows the moment the boy realizes what he’s seeing, because he chokes on a scream and draws back quickly, as if it will help.

“Wh-what--”

Lys shifts heavily, his wings scraping the ground and clacking against the stone loudly, a hollow, echoing noise.

“I… apologize.” His voice is rougher than he remembers, lower and wispy, clinging to his teeth like smoke. “I didn’t mean to… scare you.”

“N-no I just--” The boy seems to grapple with what he means to say. “Is that… are you…? An angel?” A beat of silence. “S-sorry. That was rude of me.”

“It’s alright.” Lys sighs and leans forward a little, trying to balance himself when he moves. He hasn’t had the need to in a while and Shin is not known to be patient or kind, so movement is difficult. He pushes forward anyways, attempting to shuffle closer while the boy slowly, carefully returns to the bars. "I am... At least... I think I am."

“I’ve never… seen--” The boy’s voice is hushed. “T-to this extent, I mean--” 

“You’re from… Beima?” Lys asks. As a foreigner, he’s still unused to the differences between Gaolan and Beiman, but Shin spoke enough of both for him to pick up _some_ things. With Shin, it was always either that, or suffer - and one learns quickly when sufficient pain is applied to the process. The boy is close enough now for him to make out features, while the boy still desperately tries to keep his outline in focus. It must be difficult still, with his human eyes. Lys remembers a time when the mutations were believed to be a sign you had been blessed by the gods, but he is long past that time. He exhales, a sound like a sigh and it leaves him like something heavy dripping out of his lungs. 

“Y-yes.”

“Hmm.”

Lys tries to remember what he knows of Beima, but - it’s hard for him to recall much of anything except for Shin’s flippant disregard for the Beiman monarchy. To be fair, Shin gave about the same amount of respect when speaking of the president of Gaolan, or Benediction’s mogul, so Lys is fairly certain the man doesn’t care in the slightest about human politicking. 

After all, how could one be cowed by mortal men, with the power of gods at the tips of his fingers?

“Beiman pilots… they are never this far along.”

It is an observation more than a question. The boy shakes his head and then must think Lys can’t see it because he speaks. “No— a-at least, I don’t think so. It’s always just… a little less…” 

Lys’ head dips in understanding. Of course. Beiman pilots had partners, after all, someone to share the burden of the mutations. Didn’t they? He thinks so. A little nugget of information, spoken carelessly while Shin carved into his changed skin. A weakness, he had believed, scoffed at. He had wanted Lys to be able to move a god all on his own, sped up the process by feeding Icarus both the willing and unwilling; and Icarus greedily took everything they gave but it never became any easier to work with, to Shin’s disgust.

He wonders if that's why Shin gave up on him, in the end.

“I am... I was a solo pilot.”

The boy’s eyes are wider, blinking rapidly as if he wasn’t sure he heard him right, staring at him like he had a second head. Lys might even have one. He’s not sure anymore. Everything is always so heavy. “No-- no _partner--_ ? But--” He stutters. “That’s not possible. You’re… you shouldn’t even be _alive_ right now!”

“Trust me.” Lys slumps a little more. “I know.” 

The boy winces. “R-right. Sorry.”

Lys doesn’t take offense. “...what’s your name?”

“A-Ariel,” comes the tentative response. “And.. you?”

“Lysander.” His name is the only thing he has. The one thing he remembers, other than the fact that he doesn’t belong here and that there was a time before the voices in his head. The one thing he had never allowed Shin to take from him. A voice in the back of his mind whispers it to him, and it’s the only one he knows is from a past life and not the present. “I’m… Lysander.”

Ariel moves slowly, trying to feel his way around mostly, adjusting to the dark. “This is… is he’s going to make me… like you?” His voice wavers and cracks near the end and Lys pities how young he sounds. 

“I don’t know.” He responds as honestly as he’s able. There’s really no telling what mood Shin will be in. “If you’re lucky.”

“I-if I’m _lucky?”_ Ariel chokes back.

“He gets bored eventually, if the results aren’t what he wants them to be.” Lys muses. How long has it actually been, since he’s seen Shin? Time warps strangely when you measure between the throbbing of agony pulsing under your skin. It's been a long time, he thinks. Long enough for him to hope that Shin was finally, finally done with him. “It’s better than the alternative. I think.”

“Do I want to ask?” Ariel genuinely looks as if he’s not sure if he wants to know, but Lys tells him anyway.

“He attempts to contract you to his god.” Lys says simply. “And then you die. Or you might not. But it’s rejected everyone else. There’ve been a lot.” Most, if not all, of Shin’s rejects were then fed to Icarus. He still hears them sometimes, fainter than the willing ones, but they’re there. 

“There’s… but people are looking for me…” Ariel’s voice is faint, attempting to reassure himself.

“They won’t find you.” Lys sighs. Shin was very proud of that fact. “We’re not in Beima. Or in Gaolan.”

“I’m not going to just--!” Ariel hisses before he struggles to control his agitation. Lys is a little… surprised. He hasn’t given up entirely, which is a far cry from the others Shin’s had thrown in here - Lys is starting to suspect Shin might attempt to bring him to Atropos after all. 

And this time, Atropos might not reject the contract. 

Troubling.

The voices of Icarus echo his sentiments, mostly, with the odd whimper of outrage that Lys didn’t _worship_ the man who had turned him into… _this_. The only reason Shin hadn’t been able to wage his holy war against the kingdoms in the first place had been because while he was willing to subject any number of test subjects to appease Icarus, it refused to respond to Lys alone. Shin himself had also never attempted to solo pilot Atropos, in light of that futility. Atropos wasn't man-made, not in the way Icarus was, and Shin with access to Atropos’ full might without the limitations… was not a pleasant thought. 

“--I could help.” Lys finds himself offering, to his own surprise, and Ariel’s gaze snaps up to meet his. Or attempts to. His gaze flits between the numerous eyes trained on him, shoulders hunched uneasily. 

“You’d… you could help me… escape?”

Lys would shrug, but everything is still heavy. Heavier still, as his plan slowly pulls itself together, a million and one minds piecing it together and taking it apart, battering against each other. “Would it be safe?” He murmurs, mostly to himself. “If you could return…” He sighs, tipping his head back. “There’s a price for everything. He’ll be angry-- of course. But there will be nothing even he could do. What would you be willing to give up?” 

Ariel swallows, and bless him, he doesn’t immediately tell Lys he’s willing to give anything. Smart boy. Atropos would definitely have snatched him up if Lys left him alone. “What are you asking of me?” He asks, hushed.

“You won’t belong to him anymore. But you might not belong anywhere at all. The gods are fickle, but they won’t accept a defiled sacrifice.” 

Ariel _pales_ , but Lys would expect him to be realizing the depths of his request. 

“But…” He chews at his lip. “You couldn’t just… help me get out?”

"I could," Lys agrees. “But it wouldn’t matter if you did. He’d just chase you back down.” He looks at him, _really_ looks at him. “He’s probably counting on it too. As a test. And if you pass...”

If he passes, Shin might as well offer him up to his god on a silver fucking platter. Ariel shudders, obviously terrified by the prospect, much more than he is afraid of Lys’ offer.

"I...I don't. I'm not pilot material." He croaks, and licks his lips, trembling. “None of the gods wanted me... I just. You promise… this will get me home?”

“I promise you will be free.”

Ariel doesn’t seem to realize the difference. Lys wonders if he will, after. The redhead swallows and dips his head. 

“...Alright.”

It takes effort, but Lys lumbers to his feet. He’s surprised that his legs take his weight as steadily as they do, and he hears Ariel’s sharp inhale. Lys blinks at him. He’s so _small_. Lys had known he was, most humans were now compared to him, but he’s tiny. Lys easily towered over him by several feet, and he could see the return of the hesitation that Ariel had to physically shake away. 

Icarus turned its full attention on him, on the boy, and the clamor of voices hushed, a strange, blessed silence swollen with a keen and desperate _hunger_. It does not know what Lys is attempting to do. Shin had never bothered to offer any of the sacrifices to Icarus as Lys' partner before. It will not stop him. The bars are far apart enough for him to slip a cracked, clawed hand between. The eye on his upturned palm blinks lazily at the boy.

“...will it hurt?” Ariel finally asks, voice barely a whisper.

“Most likely.” Lys admits. He doesn’t know, in all honesty. He had never offered anyone this before, but somehow… he knew this was important. 

Ariel looks sick, but takes a shaky breath, before reaching out to touch. His hand fits easily into Lys’, smooth and human, unblemished. _Brave,_ Lys thinks, again.

Icarus reaches back.

The quiet of his mind shatters as the sacrifices begin to scream again.

(There is one more voice among them now, screaming louder than the rest. And Lys does not lose himself to it, this time.)

**Author's Note:**

> Could be multi-chaptered, could be not. I'll leave it up as a oneshot for now (:


End file.
